


Carmilla Season 2 Episode 15: Hard times don't create heroes

by Heligena



Series: Season 2 Drabbles [11]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Internal Conflict, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 17:04:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4400153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heligena/pseuds/Heligena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>OMG the angst!!!</p>
<p>So I know I'm a little behind with the drabbles but this one had to be done to cleanse myself of the feels.</p>
<p>These are Laura's  brief thoughts after Carmilla walks out.</p>
<p>I'm sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carmilla Season 2 Episode 15: Hard times don't create heroes

As soon as Carmilla walked out the room, the urge to clutch her head in her hands almost drove her to her knees; a hissing pounding sound driving inwards all at once.  
As if she was made of porcelain and the hairline crack that had been sitting at the base of her skull for weeks jerked open and a tsunami of cold air hit the innermost part of her.

She’d known it was there.

Even when they’d first gotten back to Silas.

The kissing and quiet nights had been wonderful of course. Hot breath on her neck in the early morning and circles drawn lazily on the back of a palm. It had been all they’d needed to feel as if this might really work. As if the heady rush and the giggling was enough to dull all the doubts crowding round and about.

But then there were the moments. 

The strange jarring moments that reminded them that this thing, whatever it was, was precarious at best.

It was a regular Thursday night, both of them reading together slumped on the couch when Carmilla had sucked in a breath and gotten that wistful look in her eye. Laura had glanced over at the art-history book her girlfriend was reading and found the page open at a Francis Bacon painting. A mass of pain and despair on canvas. A shudder had worked its way up her spine almost immediately. Not because of the awful image splayed out on the glossy paper although that was bad enough. But because of the gleam in Carmilla’s eye as she surveyed the swathes of red and pale skin. And the way it dulled when she realised Laura had noticed what she was doing, her features smoothing out in an instant. 

Or another when talk had turned to the kind of dreams they had and the sinister greying light flashed back into Laura’s mind. The one that had made her feel hot and nauseous and...also wanted at the same time. She should have thought twice about bringing it up but as soon as the memory poured out of her mouth something inexplicable flashed across those sharp cheekbones next to her. She’d thought at the time that maybe it had been guilt. Or concern; the sort that felt unfamiliar to the brunette because of its complete absence for so many years.  
But afterwards when she was alone in their room Laura wondered if it wasn’t more of a...a longing.

For that dark pull that came with the anglerfish’s light. To feel... sort of, chosen by a thing horrific and vastly more powerful than ones self and to want to let go of all the wretched responsibilities that everyday life came with.

She had felt sick again when her brain recognised the yearning on Carmilla’s face.  
And it was. Yearning.  
It felt as though the two halves of her were at war with herself; one desperately trying to make Laura understand that her girlfriend was still the way too complicated, victimised-victimising nightmare version of her past and the other clinging desperately to the hope and optimism she’d let herself get wrapped up in.

And she couldn’t keep the two factions in check.  
She was trying.

God was she trying.  
But every time she tried to compare the savage bloodthirsty image of her girlfriend with the soft fingers that fit so neatly between her own, everything got messy and tangled up in her brain and solid thought just seemed to slip away.

And she knew she should be trying harder.  
Should rip away her need to see Carm as Redeemed.   
Because no-one was ever redeemed. People weren’t products with an end point to the assembly line.  
The conveyor belt never stopped; it just chugged on through the next mechanism inside the machine and you either bent under its weight as it tried to press you into whatever shape it was looking for or you pushed back.  
She was nineteen and a small town girl but she was well aware of that. 

And yeah, it was childish as hell. Of course it was.  
It even sent a corkscrew of embarrassment through her gut when she tried to force herself to think about it.  
But...

The thing was... if she focused her mind, pushed back all the hurt feelings and emotions clouding her thinking and she admitted that... like, really admitted it... 

...If she really let go of the image of Carmilla she’d been clutching onto since last semester then how was she supposed to sleep at night? How was she supposed to share a bed with a night terror whose breath on her neck didn’t mean I Love You like she once thought it did but instead was a reminder that the monster under the bed was sharing her duvet? 

That all it would take was a slip of self control and she wouldn’t be here anymore worrying about this shit. Or worse. She would be here. Forever; with no choice in the matter.  
A few drops of red on white linen.

Was that the choice she had to make then?  
A precarious daydream or a precarious life? One hanging by a golden thread the other by a sinew?

It didn’t seem fair.  
To either of them. 

Suddenly the hurt written on Carm’s face when she thought Laura hadn’t listened to her echoed in her mind.   
Because she had listened.

Truly.  
The truth was that Laura just wasn’t sure that she was brave enough to look the girl she loved in the eye and tell her that as much as she wanted to be with her... she was also afraid of her.  
Afraid of what might happen if things ended badly.  
And afraid of what might happen if they didn’t.

Staring at the open doorway trying to control the wet breaths building up under her ribcage Laura wished she could have said even one of these things before Carmilla had stormed out. That she could have said something other than the stupid words that just fell out of her mouth moments before.

And now she wasn’t sure she’d ever have the chance.  
Or if she even deserved it really.


End file.
